Through the Quern Stone: A View into Early Medieval Subsistence and Ceremonial Practice at the Monastic Site of Disert

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Disert– meaning a hermitage or a place apart– is a multi-phase early ecclesiastical site that has served as a sacred place to the surrounding communities of County Donegal, Ireland, since at least the early medieval period. Today, it remains a site for spiritual pilgrimage or turas. With the support of the local community, four seasons of excavation by Atlantic Technological University, Sligo, and California State University, Los Angeles have investigated multiple ceremonial features at Disert, including a holy well, a cillín, or children’s graveyard, and an enigmatic stone arch enclosure. Local tradition states that Saint Colmcille (St. Columba) founded the monastic settlement at Disert in the 6th century AD, when he looked through the central perforation of a quern stone and blessed all the land he could see. This poster presents preliminary results and interpretations of two additional rotary quern stone fragments excavated at Disert, analyzed using 3D scans, reconstructions, and comparative data. Exploring the domestic and social functions of quern stones will improve our understanding of subsistence and ceremonial practices, and everyday life at Disert.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 53211